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trees and tubs fly through the air

2003-07-03 - almost 12 noon

I have never experienced anything quite like the sight of enormous pieces of a 20,000 pound red pin oak being "boomed" over my house with a gigantic crane. The road had to be blocked off for the operation, which is continuing as I speak, but I became overloaded and headed for the library to check my emails and make a brief escape.

Yesterday morning, I found Bob unhurt among the debris, and I moved him farther back in the yard where he can make his escape. No trace of the other two turtles.

We didn't know where to start fixing the damage. We called the insurance company. Busy. We called CLECO. Busy. At first, we thought CLECO would want to move the tree, since it came from their property. However, when we finally got through after hours of phoning, they announced that, "It isn't our tree!" So we got in touch with the insurance company again, and they said to go ahead and have the tree removed, and at some point in the indefinite future, they would have an adjuster come out. We managed to get a tree guy to give us a quote a bit before nightfall on Tuesday evening.

BF, D. and I then went to Osaka West and tried a little hibachi entertainment to get our minds off the disaster.

Most of Wednesday was spent packing things away while waiting for the crane to arrive. Apparently, one of the workers had heat stroke, so the crane didn't actually get there until after 5 P.M. When they yanked one of the larger branches free of the house, the eave of the house came along with it. That ripppppp was definitely one of the most sickening sounds I've heard in my life.

And then it started to thunder. We just knew it was going to start to rain and pour down even more water through the gaping holes in our roof onto the beautiful hardwood floor that BF had finished installing less than a year ago. We definitely did not want any more water in the house.

Apparently, even though the power was off, the crane guys had to check with the CLECO guys to get them to turn off something before they could go any further, because there were some live wires down in the back. Whatever CLECO did involved turning off the neighbor's power as well, so when we returned in the morning, we discovered that 1) the roof was tarped (yeah!), and 2) since the neighbors who were giving us power with an extension cord no longer had power, the food in our fridge was now warm (boo). But at least there shouldn't be any more rain coming indoors.

This morning, I watched more of that enormous old oak come flying over my house. I also watched the hot tub and the damaged pine tree come flying over. I am now completely overloaded. But not so overloaded that I didn't notice the Mississippi Kites kiting over the house. It can't be a completely bad day when you see a kite.

I am taking lots of pictures but I can already tell that pictures won't convey the size of this event. They make this enormous oak look picture-sized and, believe me, it is life-sized.